Not just beautiful, though—the stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they’re watching me.
~ Haruki Murakami
Himalayan Mountains and Milky Way, Nepal – photo by denbelitsky, bigstockphoto.com
Devadana Sanctuary
Click thumbnail to view larger image.
What is greater than us is the earth itself—life—and we are folded into it, a small part of it, and we have work to do. We need a new animism, a new pantheism, a new way of telling the oldest of stories. We could do worse than to return to the notion of the planet as the mother that birthed us. Those old stories have plenty to say about the fate of people who don’t respect their mothers.
~ Paul Kingsnorth
Kinlochleven, Scottish Highlands – photo by Alice D, bigstockphoto.com
Our natural state of being is in relationship, a tango, a constant state of one influencing the other. Just as the subatomic particles that compose us cannot be separated from the space and particles surrounding them, so living beings cannot be isolated from each other.
~ Lynne McTaggart
Late Summer Lotus – photo by Terésa Stern
You do not belong to you. You belong to the universe. The significance of you will remain forever obscure to you, but you may assume you are fulfilling your significance if you apply yourself to converting all your experience to highest advantage to others. Make the world work, for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or to the disadvantage to anyone.
~ R. Buckminster Fuller
Icelandic Sunset – photo by Ragnhilur Jonsdottir
Felice Wyndham is an ecological anthropologist and ethnobiologist who has noted that people she has worked with can intimately sense the world beyond their body. “It’s a form of enhanced mindfulness,” she says. “It’s quite common, you see it in most hunter-gatherer groups. It’s an extremely developed skill base of cognitive agility, of being able to put yourself into a viewpoint and perspective of many creatures or objects – rocks, water, clouds.
“We, as humans, have a remarkable sensitivity, imagination, and ability to be cognitively agile,” Wyndham says. “If we are open to it and train ourselves to learn how to drop all of the distractions to our sensory capacity, we’re able to do so much more biologically than we use in contemporary industrial society.”
~ Jim Robbins, “Native Knowledge: What Ecologists Are Learning from Indigenous People”
Monument Valley – photo by tanaonte, bigstockphoto.com
No matter what problem you look at, every ecological problem comes from this illusion that we are separate from nature.
~ Vandana Shiva
New Paltz, NY Summer – photo by Brian Luke
There are times I catch myself believing that there is something that is separate from something else…
~ Gregory Bateson
Sunset, Bali – photo by Netfalls, bigstockphoto.com
…when we place our emphasis and consciousness on the soul of the world, we’re embracing the world as something sacred, as something that has its own essence, its own purpose and destiny that might very well be different, bigger, and more mysterious than anything we suspect or anything we could understand.
~ Geneen Marie Haugen
Grand Canyon, South Rim – photo by Pung PUng, bigstockphoto.com
Scholarliness alone is not enough; there is a knowledge of the heart that gives deeper insight. The knowledge of the heart is in no book and is not to be found in the mouth of any teacher, but grows out of you like the green seed from the dark earth.
~ Carl Jung
After the Rain – photo by yayabaldillah, bigstockphoto.com
There is a world behind this world. The old cultures used to be in constant conversation with it through the sacred practices of storytelling, dreaming, ceremony, and song. They invited the Otherworld to visit them, to transmit its wisdom to them, so that they might be guided by an ancient momentum.
But as we succumbed to the spell of rationalism, the living bridge between the worlds fell into disrepair. As fewer made the journey back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch, we forgot how to find the Otherworld.
At any given moment, we are either turning away from or coming into congruence with our kinship with mystery.
~ Toko-pa Turner
Elf Garden – Iceland, photo by Ragnhildur Johnsdottir
Every breath is a sacrament, an affirmation of our connection with all other living things, a renewal of our link with our ancestors and a contribution to generations yet to come. Our breath is a part of life’s breath, the ocean of air that envelopes the earth.
~ David Suzuki
Forest, Phuket, Thailand – photo by kovalvs, bigstockphoto.com
Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.
~ Albert Einstein
Egret in Rainforest – photo by WhitcombeRD, bigstockphoto.com
People who’ve had any genuine spiritual experience always know that they don’t know. They are utterly humbled before mystery. They are in awe before the abyss of it all, in wonder at eternity and depth, and a love, which is incomprehensible to the mind.
~ Richard Rohr
Valle de Luna (Moon Valley), Chile – photo by Aliaksei Ksreidzeleu, bigstockphoto.com
We need movements rooted in love right now, movements powered not by difference and exclusion and punishment, but by common ground, compassion, humility, healthy boundaries, patience and healing.
~ Adrienne Maree Brown
Grand Teton Sunrise – photo by 225165481, bigstockphoto.com
If you practice compassion, whether you believe in a religion or not, you will come to realize the value of compassion for your own peace of mind. The very atmosphere of your own life becomes happier, which promotes good health, perhaps even a longer life. By developing a warm heart, we can also transform others. As we become nicer human beings, our neighbors, friends, parents, spouses, and children experience less anger. They will become more warmhearted, compassionate, and harmonious. You will see the world around you change little by little. Even a small act of compassion grants meaning and purpose to our lives.
~ H.H. the Dalai Lama
Lotus – photo by Ange DiBennedetto
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